


They're Advertising in the Skies for People Like Us

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-01
Updated: 2009-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is a thin shell of confidence over fear and longing, the same as she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They're Advertising in the Skies for People Like Us

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to mousapelli for looking it over. Title from u2.

The new boy is very tall. River closes her eyes, imagines she can see his bones growing, his skin stretching to accommodate them. He laughs when she says this, a surprisingly sweet sound that makes her heart clench, makes her want to laugh with him. She opens her eyes, surprised to see they're the same height.

You will be, she says.

Yeah, right. He turns and walks away. He's a thin shell of confidence over fear and longing, the same as she is.

They're going to be friends. River is sure of it.

*

The new boy smells of sulfur and ash. He dreams of fire.

She promises to protect him and he laughs, bitter this time, like he can taste blood and iron on his tongue.

Water quenches fire, she says, hand over her heart. My name is River.

Sam, he says, flashing dimples and holding out a hand. She takes it and twirls on the ball of her foot, a fine pirouette. Her ballet teacher would be pleased. River misses dancing, but they don't teach it here. Not the kind of dancing she likes best, anyway.

*

In addition to the full academic curriculum the brochures promised, they learn many unexpected things--shooting, hand-to-hand combat, strategy. River is the youngest, but also the smartest one here. Sam is her only true competition--he hits the bull's-eye every time the first day they put a gun in his hand, and only gets better from there.

He's stronger and a better fighter to start, but she's faster and more flexible, and she _anticipates_ in a way that makes him shake his head and mutter. She's used to that, though. She's always been able to calculate the probabilities, to _know_ what someone's going to do even before they do.

He's a rifle, deadly and powerful at long distances, but she's a knife, up close and slipped between the ribs before anyone's aware the perimeter's been breached.

They should be rivals, but she won't let that happen.

She helps him with theoretical physics, lets him think he's helping her with rhetoric and strategy.

Only the very best get to participate in the special classes. They're never seen in the dorms again. Everyone wants to be the best, to be chosen. Rumor has it they have their own rooms, their own personal tutors. Rumor has it they have the best of everything and the first pick of the best jobs in the Core.

River knows that rumor speaks with a forked tongue.

*

She and Sam are the only two taken from their class.

They have their own cells, and doctors dedicated to breaking them. River isn't sure what jobs are waiting for them, what jobs are _possible_ for them; they are being turned into ghosts.

The doctors start with dopamine, epinephrine, methamphetamine. Hallucinogens are next, people in white coats transforming into animals, monsters, chimeras. There is always someone taking notes. She stabs one of the techs in the jugular with his own stylus, draws on the walls with his blood. That's when they give her sedatives, sweet rush of blissful darkness that quiets everything.

*

I begged my parents to let me come here, River says one night when Sam is in the next bed over in the infirmary. The lights are dimmed and the techs have left them.

I ran away to come here, he confesses. Forged my dad's signature on the paperwork and hopped a freighter at the Eavesdown docks. Now I just want to run back home. He doesn't say where home is. She doesn't ask.

Me, too.

They speak in gibberish, a code only they can understand, but they aren't as clever as they think they are, or the drugs have made them careless, because they're caught in the corridor only a hundred yards from the infirmary.

She tries to ignore the insidious voice in the back of her mind that whispers, Pride goeth before a fall, as they tighten her restraints.

She shrieks and jerks, trying to get free of the snakes hissing even inside her own head.

It's not our fault, Sam says fiercely, but she can feel the doubt underneath.

It's not our fault, she repeats.

Sometimes, she even believes it.

*

The next time she's lucid enough to recognize Sam, he's eight inches taller and substantially broader.

She says, I knew it.

He laughs, the same laugh that makes her want to laugh with him, and she remembers her promise to protect him. Remembers how she failed.

At night, she hears him yelling sometimes; he calls for Dean the way she cries for Simon. He dreams of fire, and she dreams his dreams.

She whispers to her pillow that Simon will come, Simon will save her. She knows Sam does the same.

They're not allowed to send waves home, so she writes to Simon with ink on flimsy lined paper, lies she hopes will lead him to the truth.

After all the needles, she's not sure what the truth is anymore.

*

She sneaks into Sam's bed at night, whispers, does it hurt? as he wraps his callused hands around her throat; his fingers are long and elegant, dirt and gun oil under the nails, soaked into the whorls and lines of his skin.

Who are you? he whispers.

River, she answers, holding very still.

He lets her go, his hands shaking. Sorry, sorry, he says. I'm so sorry.

They are all sorry.

Shh. She pushes his sweat-damp hair off his forehead, tries to smile. Simon will come, she says before she flees back to her own bunk on silent feet. Simon will save us.

She says it as much for herself as for him.

*

The night of Sam's birthday, there's a fire, and then Sam is gone, as if he'd never been there in the first place. She knows not to ask, and soon enough, she forgets; on the rare occasions she remembers, she thinks maybe he was nothing but a dream, an imaginary friend she created to keep her company while she waits for Simon to come for her.

Seven months later, her dream comes true, and she wakes up on Serenity.

*

After Miranda, they go back to small-time jobs--salvage runs and smuggling, the occasional group of passengers with enough secrets of their own not to question the crew's. Mal likes it better that way, flying under the radar while they get back on their feet, letting her learn the ropes good and slow.

She still has good days and bad days, but more of the first than the second now, and while she can't forgive the ones who forged her into a weapon, she likes the irony of being the knife pointed silently at their heart.

It makes Simon nervous whenever she goes on a job, but she can handle it, the familiar weight of a gun in her hand, the necessary weight of her boots on her feet, keeping her rooted to the here and now.

She takes point, slips like a phantom through the salvage yard Mal's contact picked for the exchange. She turns a corner and comes face to face (face to chest, really, which will make her laugh, later) with a ghost from her past, long hair curling over his forehead, eyes widening in surprise as he recognizes her.

"You're very tall," she says, reaching up to brush his hair out of his face. She needs to touch him, to know he's real. "I told you so."

He laughs, bright as silver, and it makes her heart ache. "River. You're alive."

"Water quenches fire," she reminds him, and takes his hand.

end

~*~


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